Straitlaced Tally Tisdale and her free spirited sixteen-year-old sister Ivy arrive in Sutton Creek, Colorado, in 1863 to take over their missing father's homestead. Land Agent Goodnight Pettyjohn warns them of days of backbreaking work, deadly mountain storms, dangerous wild animals, and trigger-happy outlaws. But Carl Henry Tisdale made sure both his daughters know how to shoot a gun, ride a horse, and drive a wagon, so Tally welcomes the challenge. But not so Ivy, and when bandit Birch Quinn returns to dig up stagecoach loot he'd secretly buried on their fathe''s claim, Ivy sees him and the gold as a way to escape the drudgery and boredom of homesteading.